(no subject)
Salutations from China. I have pictures from Tianjin's Nankai University. This connection is taking FOREVER, so I am going to upload a few more pictures tomorrow before I leave for Datong, Xi'an, Suzhou, and finally Shanghai. -Lindsey
Nankai
Here's the big old building Nankai is most proud of.
Liuxuesheng de sushe - the foreign students dormitory. I'm on third.
Shortcut! This is the alley outside of our dorm. They dry our sheets here.
Jingju
This is a before picture of Gao Kuixing, Pan Dawei and Bao Jianke.
Now Dawei looks undead.
Dawei at his finest. I seem to have many pictures of Dawei. It's okay, because he looked the prettiest.
I think this is Andrew and Jack or Zander. The wise guy and the emperor?
Nora and I. I have almost as many jingju pictures as I have wushu pictures.
I make a good empress.
"The Boat Tour"
This is from before the boat tour. The dragons danced for us and then teased the audience. This was the grayest day we'd yet seen in Tianjin. Zhao tells us we're lucky -- spring is dust storm season. Beijing and Tianjin could well be deserts soon.
Here's another camera crew. They didn't even let us sit down. We had to stay on deck the whole ride and stand behind the newscaster. Every time she shut the cameras off, the cameramen told us to look happier. It was all okay when we saw ourselves on the evening news!
Aaron and Christian getting along just swimmingly up on deck.
A boat. The camera crew told us to smile, smile, look interested, don't put your hats on. So I took pictures of boats and laughed. Waiguo ren are so easily amused.
A cute little kid oddly placed.
Hahaha. Inappropriate, but worth capturing. Vending machines have M&Ms, crackers, soda, napkins, pregnancy tests, condoms, cigarettes, you name it, all in the same machine.
The Jingju Field Trip
Here's a shot from the inside of a taxicab. Our driver was a little lost, and had to back down a (kind of) scary alley. However, we eventually made our way to... Jingju!
Jingju is Beijing opera. It's really intense -- or lihai, as we have all taken to saying. It involves INCREDIBLY high-pitched voices, choreographed dance moves (mostly of the hands and face), a bunch of really cool instruments, sets, etc. etc. Chinese television has a lot of historical jingju programming.
This is a video of the smoky, open-mic jingju bar. It was an experience and a half. Our jingju teacher is a first-grade state actor, if that means anything.
Funny - I tried to take a picture of a mother and her child, and look how many people got in the way.
A stony-faced lady leaning against a stone-faced lady.
Do you wanna go to the market?
The alley we take to get to Xinancun.
Nora bending down to get under the gate to Xinancun -- basically our life source. There isn't much you can't get here.
This is our fruit lady. The picture was taken at night, but it doesn't matter to us. We know her like the back of our hands.
My best friend. He wanted to see his picture on the camera.
Wushu
Wushu class begins. She made us run a lap because she thought we didn't want to play tag.
HUG BREAK!
There are at least a thousand of us out here. No there were not! No but for seriously, you don't know how hard it is to catch Carleton students all doing the same pose correctly at the same time.
This one's pretty good. I think the problem is we just weren't very good at wushu.
I think everyone in this picture has a descriptive face.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon joke?
Here is a video of our taiji and wushu teacher. She is doing a simple wushu routine, but she schooled us anyway.
I started to get bored of taking pictures of wushu. Here's the big TV tower.
We have to eat and get around and it's really hard sometimes
My other best friend, the taxi driver. He took me on an adventure to find my horribly misplaced package at the train station.
Okay, I have one more best friend: the internet lady.
Uh oh moms and dads! Here come the pictures of our favorite places to eat. We are so grateful for Hep vaccines. This is "the Xinjiang noodle place" at Xinancun.
Meng Leina, Gao Nixia, Pan Dawei, Bao Jianke and.. Zander. I don't know his name.
Mmm. The da bing jidan stand. Perfect for a meal or snack and in the alley right next to our classroom.
A close-up.
The Classroom Experience
George getting into shufa. Honestly, I don't think anyone got into shufa. What a class.
Four hours of Chinese a day? Shilpa and Jini look confused. I'm sure we all did.
Here's a typical sequence of classroom moments. First, Christian and Aaron ask Jia Laoshi to clarify something.
And then Andrew kai's a wanxiao.
We all laugh.
Zhe shi wo de biezi ma? Bu shi, Tao Jiean, bu shi biezi, shi BIzi.
We laugh some more.
Here we are last night, up all hours studying for the final this morning.
I'll post more pictures later! I hope all is well wherever you may be.
Nankai
Here's the big old building Nankai is most proud of.
Liuxuesheng de sushe - the foreign students dormitory. I'm on third.
Shortcut! This is the alley outside of our dorm. They dry our sheets here.
Jingju
This is a before picture of Gao Kuixing, Pan Dawei and Bao Jianke.
Now Dawei looks undead.
Dawei at his finest. I seem to have many pictures of Dawei. It's okay, because he looked the prettiest.
I think this is Andrew and Jack or Zander. The wise guy and the emperor?
Nora and I. I have almost as many jingju pictures as I have wushu pictures.
I make a good empress.
"The Boat Tour"
This is from before the boat tour. The dragons danced for us and then teased the audience. This was the grayest day we'd yet seen in Tianjin. Zhao tells us we're lucky -- spring is dust storm season. Beijing and Tianjin could well be deserts soon.
Here's another camera crew. They didn't even let us sit down. We had to stay on deck the whole ride and stand behind the newscaster. Every time she shut the cameras off, the cameramen told us to look happier. It was all okay when we saw ourselves on the evening news!
Aaron and Christian getting along just swimmingly up on deck.
A boat. The camera crew told us to smile, smile, look interested, don't put your hats on. So I took pictures of boats and laughed. Waiguo ren are so easily amused.
A cute little kid oddly placed.
Hahaha. Inappropriate, but worth capturing. Vending machines have M&Ms, crackers, soda, napkins, pregnancy tests, condoms, cigarettes, you name it, all in the same machine.
The Jingju Field Trip
Here's a shot from the inside of a taxicab. Our driver was a little lost, and had to back down a (kind of) scary alley. However, we eventually made our way to... Jingju!
Jingju is Beijing opera. It's really intense -- or lihai, as we have all taken to saying. It involves INCREDIBLY high-pitched voices, choreographed dance moves (mostly of the hands and face), a bunch of really cool instruments, sets, etc. etc. Chinese television has a lot of historical jingju programming.
This is a video of the smoky, open-mic jingju bar. It was an experience and a half. Our jingju teacher is a first-grade state actor, if that means anything.
Funny - I tried to take a picture of a mother and her child, and look how many people got in the way.
A stony-faced lady leaning against a stone-faced lady.
Do you wanna go to the market?
The alley we take to get to Xinancun.
Nora bending down to get under the gate to Xinancun -- basically our life source. There isn't much you can't get here.
This is our fruit lady. The picture was taken at night, but it doesn't matter to us. We know her like the back of our hands.
My best friend. He wanted to see his picture on the camera.
Wushu
Wushu class begins. She made us run a lap because she thought we didn't want to play tag.
HUG BREAK!
There are at least a thousand of us out here. No there were not! No but for seriously, you don't know how hard it is to catch Carleton students all doing the same pose correctly at the same time.
This one's pretty good. I think the problem is we just weren't very good at wushu.
I think everyone in this picture has a descriptive face.
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon joke?
Here is a video of our taiji and wushu teacher. She is doing a simple wushu routine, but she schooled us anyway.
I started to get bored of taking pictures of wushu. Here's the big TV tower.
We have to eat and get around and it's really hard sometimes
My other best friend, the taxi driver. He took me on an adventure to find my horribly misplaced package at the train station.
Okay, I have one more best friend: the internet lady.
Uh oh moms and dads! Here come the pictures of our favorite places to eat. We are so grateful for Hep vaccines. This is "the Xinjiang noodle place" at Xinancun.
Meng Leina, Gao Nixia, Pan Dawei, Bao Jianke and.. Zander. I don't know his name.
Mmm. The da bing jidan stand. Perfect for a meal or snack and in the alley right next to our classroom.
A close-up.
The Classroom Experience
George getting into shufa. Honestly, I don't think anyone got into shufa. What a class.
Four hours of Chinese a day? Shilpa and Jini look confused. I'm sure we all did.
Here's a typical sequence of classroom moments. First, Christian and Aaron ask Jia Laoshi to clarify something.
And then Andrew kai's a wanxiao.
We all laugh.
Zhe shi wo de biezi ma? Bu shi, Tao Jiean, bu shi biezi, shi BIzi.
We laugh some more.
Here we are last night, up all hours studying for the final this morning.
I'll post more pictures later! I hope all is well wherever you may be.